Everybody Breaks
by MrsVincentCrabbe
Summary: COMPLETE: Fool, you made the girl fall in love. A Leonard/Penny relationship as told by a Sheldon/Penny shipper.


AN: This fic has to come with a disclaimer. This is one take on the Leonard and Penny relationship BUT! as told by a Sheldon/Penny shipper. So, no, I don't hate Leonard and Penny, I just don't personally believe that a relationship could work between them. However, I would ask that all shippers (Leonard/Penny and Sheldon/Penny alike) would read this fic without judging because I wrote this out of love and respect for the characters, not personal vendettas and ship wars.

Inspired by Gavin DeGraw's "Glass". Full version with lyrics available at my Livejournal. Link available in my profile. 

"I love you."

The words had been so easy for him that first night. Like this was it, he had found her. She smiled against this cheek as he whispered these things to her.

"You're beautiful."

"Forever."

"I promise."

And she believed him. Because he was different. Because he wouldn't lie like the others.

**************

She made love to him. She didn't sleep with him. She didn't do him. She didn't have sex with him. She made love to him. And it felt like he made love her. He held her softly. It wasn't in an alcoholic haze or rough and quick. It was slow and right and together. And afterward, he smiled into her neck and told her about how he had plans for them to go to a bed and breakfast next weekend when Sheldon was at the conference and how someday they would move to a nicer apartment away from prying eyes and anal-retentive Texans.

**************

She knows it bad when he takes her to some physics conference party deal and she doesn't even heave some long-suffering sigh. She threw on a pretty dress and stood by the man she was quickly falling for. And when he puffed himself up like a little peacocks for all his colleagues, she smiled and felt proud that she was something worth showing off. She'd been arm candy before but she'd never felt worth something. He always made her feel like she was worth something.

**************

As time wore on, the pretty words stopped. She would snuggle up to him on her couch and whisper "I love you" in his ear and he hesitated. It just a fraction of a second, but she heard it. Every time. She heard that slight "uh" before the pretty words. And then they sounded hollow. Eventually, she stopped saying the words to start with. Because she didn't want a parrot, she wanted a man.

**************

But it was when he touched her that she forgot things like that. She just...fell into it. Into the way he made it feel special and different. Like she just wasn't another conquest on some long line of girls. She felt like she was just where she was supposed to be. And it empowered her. It changed her.

**************

"I just....didn't think it would get here, Penny," he said, shuffling around her apartment.

"Get here? Where's here, Leonard? We don't go places, we don't do things, we just don't. What are you afraid of, huh?"

"Penny, we've been together three years-"

"Yeah, three damn years, Leonard, and we've been talking about moving in together for two of them. Have you even cracked a newspaper? No. Have you googled on your little computer and emailed me apartments? No. No, you're afraid of this, of us, of commitment."

"I'm not!"

"You're not, huh? Then where's my ring, huh? Where's the apartment? Where's the alone time? I don't see anything to prove you aren't afraid of making something more out of this. Why would you even tease me with saying you loved me, Leonard?"

**************

She locked him out. And told him she was done. So, he left, defeated, back across the hall to prying eyes and an anal-retentive Texan. She calls her mother and she says "Baby, you're better off without a man." She calls her sister who tells her to "get some rebound sex." Her friends invite her out for a Finally Single Again Party.

She cries on her couch instead.

**************

She heard Sheldon knock on her apartment door but refused to answer it. He knocked again. "Penny, open up or the bread will get cold." Her intrigue over that statement brought her to the door. "Oh, good. I didn't have the ingredients to make another loaf for you." He handed her a loaf of banana bread. She put it on the counter and opened her fridge.

"You want some, Sheldon?" He fidgeted and declined, saying he had to return to his apartment.

"Thank you, Sheldon."

"You're welcome." He turned to leave.

"Sheldon!" he turned to face her again, hands clasped behind his back. "I'm sorry."

"Well, whatever for? You have done nothing to my person nor have you recently incurred any strikes or touched my things-"

"I'm sorry for the mess this must have caused in your life."

"Penny, I have no personal stake in this relationship other than the smug 'I told you so' I have already delivered to Leonard. In consequence, he bought home a cat." She smiled. "The bread was for you to feel better."

"Thank you, Sheldon." She followed him to the door, wiping the moisture from her eyes. He turned and opened his mouth but she just smiled and filled it in for him. "'There, there, Penny', I already know." He looked at her for a moment before giving her a curt nod and going back to his apartment.

**************

She was smearing butter on her second slice of bread when she heard her door open. "I'm so sorry." Leonard said in a shattered voice. They rushed to each other's arms and she sobbed into his shoulder. "Friends?" And she smiled. And she knew.

**************

This is how this was always going to happen. This was always the result. No matter when or where or why or how, their relationship was always going to end like this. And she felt peace. Because she knew they had done all they could to make it work. And it didn't. It still hurt. It still hurt like hell. Because they were two broken people, trying to mend themselves separately. Trying to glue the shards of themselves back together. But this was how it was going to be. And just like every thing else, this felt right.


End file.
